I'm happy with my pay and work. But my boss, parents and social circle think i deserve more.

27 Male ,got an offer of 20.5 lpa. Most of the people I know here at grapevine are making way more and friends in my circle are making around 35-50 lpa. Now I am confused,I have a lot of questions in my head. Did I slack off? Or did I do okay?Cause I was avg in college(7.6 cgpa) tier -3 and started my job at non-dev role. I thought market was down hence I was happy with 20.5 lpa,but now I see folks making more money. My progression : 3 lpa to 5 lpa (Accenture for 2 years) service based S.A.P basis job. Drone tech startup: ML Engineer (2.3 yoe)[8-12 LPA] Now I will be joining an MNC : As Sr.MLE offer in hand (20.5 LPA) Overall I have 4.3 yoe. Any advice is greatly appreciated. I might be insecure,I cannot talk about this problem with my parents or friends (or anyone around me)

I work as a software engineer (Backend) at a startup ( valued over $200m). Most of my revolves around designing and building applications using python based frameworks (Django, flask, fast api). Integrating AI models to the backend, not so exciting but yeah I do. Also, deploying them in Google cloud and setting up the cloud infrastructure. Occasionally I do write load testing scripts using Gatling. At times I feel like I'm not doing any deep tech work and I'm bored. Most of the days I have zero motivation to do anything. How's the life of people doing deep tech at work? What am I missing? What should I focus on? I wonder if I'm underpaid at times (18 lpa) (exp - 4yrs). How should I move forward with regards to my career?

I know I deserve more, as I have been constantly delivering more than what's expected out of me. But I still feel - I'm not compensated well for my hard-work and skill. My take-home is 20+LPA, and I have 6 yrs of experience. And moreover the workplace is not challenging anymore for me as an individual contributor. Most of my time rn is getting spent in training other people. I have contemplating to ask for a hike. Or should I just switch?

What is criteria of underpaid/ overpaid? Don't say market standards 😒 I have known people who are skilled and not getting even standard money

My current salary is 42LPA. I am from IIT, have 7 years of experience and work in product. Honestly, my value in the market is higher than what I’m being paid but I am very demotivated to optimise for that. When I do see less deserving people minting more money, I feel that I am doing injustice to myself and playing the wrong hand. More and more though, the thought of earning more money chokes me a bit. I have dreams of building something of my own - that gives me control to build something my way and freedom to live my life as per my terms. But the mindset of “zyada paisa pareshaani hai” doesn’t leave me. My family also is not dependent on me and whatever is needed from my side, I actively contribute to. I also lack any motivation to focus on my investments and see my money grow. I just have money sitting around in my bank account purely for nothing I also look at my lifestyle choices from time to time and go into existential debate of why we need the things that we do. This has come to a point where I really do not understand my relationship with money and why we earn and spend it. For me at this point, it’s just a show for the world. There’s very little that you need, and really no limit to what you want to show. And I just don’t see a point in it anymore.

I got my first salary after getting my cash CTC increased from 22 to 29LPA I thought I’d be happy but I just checked my bank account and closed it. Felt nothing. No differential feeling / experience for even a second YOE: 5 Earlier when my salary moved from 30k to 50k month I used to get the happiness hit for a week but now it’s “meh” even though the difference is much higher. Anyone else rocking the same boat?

I want to understand if you are also satisfied with your compensation?

Try to avoid asking questions which can doxx me on LinkedIn (that's where I post a little) See if you can focus on asking questions around principles & not masala stories Problem with masala stories is that you'll learn the wrong things from my narratives This will be fun I think

I am a senior manager in a software company, in my 40s , in the cloud operations domain. I have no post grad ,no certs , and playing a people leader role, no technical knowledge (i am technically inclined but have not made learning tech my priority), I feel like I am not employable if I get fired. I feel like I need to do something to get employable, what can I do?